


Catch you, if I can

by karlamartinova



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Childhood Friends, F/M, Flashbacks, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-06-12 02:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19556674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karlamartinova/pseuds/karlamartinova
Summary: There are pretenders among us, geniuses who can become anyone they want to be. In year 1998, a young girl named Rey was found at Dover airport and brought to the Institute. She was accepted as a part of powerful Skywalker family and met another pretender named Ben. 18 years later, Ben was Ben no more and Rey was tasked to bring him back.Pretender AU





	1. Which is my beginning?

**Author's Note:**

> Always looking for a beta. Leave a comment if interested.

She hates herself for feeling her heart speed up when her phone rings at 3 am, hates herself for being awake, expecting it, looking forward to it. Yes, there are plenty of excuses why him calling at 3 am it’s a good thing. He can drop her clues, open up himself more and she can manipulate him into coming back to the Institute. But that won’t happen. She knows it and more frustratingly, he knows it too. Still, he doesn’t trust her and it almost hurts as much as admitting to herself she doesn’t really want him back.

“What,” Rey barks into the phone, making herself sound annoyed somehow needs much more effort this time. She’s tired and she misses him. Misses Ben.

“Rey, pleasant as ever. How’s life treating you?” Kylo’s deep voice returns her to reality. It’s different like this, almost cold, mechanical. It helps to ground her, to understand why she needs to do her job and capture him. She owes it to Leia, and Han. Her heart clenches at the memory of the only father she ever knew. It’s suddenly easier to hate him.

“Like he caught me in bed with his wife. What do you want, monster? Missing your mommy and hoping that talking to me will bring you closer to her?” Rey couldn’t help but flinch at her own words. She’s being cruel, deliberately but it’s better than the alternative. The alternative would be admitting that she believes he's owed the freedom after what was done to him, doesn’t want to see him locked up like a criminal because no matter what he did (Han, Han, Han), Rey still remembers the teenage boy who taught her to smile.

Kylo is used to her barbs by now and usually just laughs but this time is different, a defeated sigh sounds through the line and Rey grips her phone willing him no to throw his phone across the room. Maybe she does it for the very same reason, wants him to cut his ties completely. He constantly says he will, but keeps calling nevertheless.

“You almost make me miss the sad little girl. Goodnight, Rey,” he whispers and the line goes dead. The clock above her tell her that even if she would track the call, she wouldn’t have managed to get his location. It makes her feel better.

…

Rey hates flying, ever since she was little. Her parents left her at the airport, between loving families and busy businessmen. The Institute has private jets so she pretty much avoids all the crowds but there’s something about the huge building that makes her feel uneasy. Poe knows it by now and usually walks next to her, smiling and chatting, hoping to make her feel better. Hux usually doesn’t even care if they follow. Sometimes she thinks that he survives his days pretending that they don’t exist. He walks ahead of them even through the bank which Kylo attempted to rob. 

Connix, their top hacker managed to match his face with the security camera footage but he managed to escape before they landed. Not that Rey was surprised. Through the last three years of chasing the Institution’s prized boy, they came close enough only once and she still didn’t allow herself to remember that fuck up. Snoke reminds her often enough.

Looking like they belong there, they manage to pass the police and while Hux causes a scene and Poe pretends to solve the situation, she slips to the security room to look for the inevitable clue Kylo left them. It’s a game for him, “catch me, if you can” he mocks her daily and they let him because it’s their only chance, to play along and hope to outsmart him one day. They all think that she can, that her abilities, so similar to his, would be his downfall. Rey knows she has them, what she lacks it’s motivation.

The notebook is innocently resting on the desk, obviously the feds didn’t have yet time to bag it and she quickly grabs it moving back to the loud voices. Hux is obviously reading up on Shakespeare, his voice almost sounds melodic. She passes them, smirks at Poe and it’s almost out when someone reaches for her arm.

“Rey?”

She turns around, already recognizing the voice and a smile automatically settles on her face. The man pulls her into his arms and squeezes hard before quickly stepping away to look her over. Her heart flutters looking up into Finn’s smiling eyes. It’s him, it’s really him, her best friend who she had to abandon to fulfill a promise.

“I cannot believe we just met like that,” he’s grinning at her looking her over and like this, Rey can pretend she didn’t abandon him without any explanation. That their friendship wasn’t on the long list of things she lost because of the Institute. She wasn’t allowed to think such thoughts. They gave her family and purpose and place to belong to. Of course there was a price to pay.

“Yes, quite unbelievable,” she says back with a smile too already knowing this has Kylo written all over it. With him, there aren’t such things as coincidences. 

“What are you doing here?”

Poe is looking anxious behind Finn, Hux bored as always and she knows she has to exit this situation. It’s dangerous. She can’t tell him anything but this feels like a gift she got and she won’t leave it behind. She just needs to think on her feet, come with good enough excuses for everyone, for Finn, as to why is she here. For Poe, not to get anxious and tell Leia anything that might not be true, and for Hux, who cannot know that there are still people she cares about.

Rey is a pretender. This is nothing.

“Job hunting actually, came her for an interview. What about you?” she asks and pulls him to the side, agents are still running out and in the bank and she nods to Hux who immediately understands and starts walking away, Poe hurrying after him. When they pass her, she hands him the notebook behind her back.

Finn doesn’t notice, at least she thinks so, because he immediately motions towards the bank. “On the job actually, someone tried to rob the bank,” he answers and smiles again, huge smile that lightens up his whole face. “Oh, peanut, I’m so glad I’ve found you again.”

Then he’s on her again and Rey lets him give her another hug. Memories flash to her, from their time on the academy, from their runs and parties and quiet moments when she would cry about her parents and he would speak about his. Then the call came, just before their final exams and she had to leave everything behind.

What Kylo took, Kylo now returned, and she will hold onto it.

…

“Thank you,” Rey's 6 years old and holding on the teddy. It looks old and weathered down but for Rey, it smells like home she never had.

“Don’t mention it, kid. Luke might think I’m human after all,” he grins up at her from his spot at her feet and she drops next to him with a huff. He looks at her weirdly when she leans her head at his shoulder. He’s solid under her, like this all might be real after all. That someone might actually want her and love her. She clutches the teddy to her chest and soon she feels Ben’s arm on her shoulder as he hugs her to him.

Safe. Family. Home.


	2. I feel lost

Rey feels extremely weary, usually it feels like a permanent state but today, dragging her feet to the post mission briefing with Snoke it somehow more painful. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t feel like it, a mission, maybe it’s because she didn’t sleep a wink due to guilt eating from inside. It was more difficult to make Kylo into a monster after what he did for her. She knows that could’ve been his goal after all, to gain himself some points for sympathy, to make her doubt her mission and back off. It wasn’t like Rey had a choice. She promised, and she never backs of from them.

Checking her wristwatch, she realizes she’s still on time no matter her moral dilemma. The elevator is surprisingly empty for the morning rush, she doesn’t have to wait two Candy Crush levels this time and it unsettles her. When routine is broken, it never means good things, Dr. Holdo used to tell her while Han did everything to contradict her. He used to sneak Rey out for impromptu fishing trips during the school week interrupting sims with arms full of sweets. Poe was always more obedient but Rey run the moment she saw him. 

With this memory of Ben’s father, she finally reaches the meeting room fully expecting to already find Hux and Snoke there. Everyone knew that Hux was Snoke’s while Poe was Leia’s, it was the reason they both joined the hunt. Rey was, according to the results, the second most powerful pretender after Ben (or Kylo, depending on whom you ask) and once she promised to Leia (“bring my boy back”)...

But it’s not the dark two she finds when she enters the room, it’s Leia in her white dress standing near the window, Poe’s head bent close to hers. They both turn at the same time and Rey freezes in the door. The looks on their faces aren’t please and she tries not to take it personally. Soon, there’s a smile on the older woman’s face and she moves towards Rey with arms outstretched. As if pulled, she steps forwards and let herself be embraces.

Rey always loved Mrs. Organa-Sola as she imagines, she would maybe love her mother, but there was something missing there. Maybe it was because they never formally adopted her, or between sharing secrets between Holdo and Han, there weren’t much left for her almost-mother, but Rey often felt that Leia was holding back on fully accepting her as family. Call her paranoid but with her abilities, anxieties sometimes turned to be true.

“Rey, sweetheart, I heard you missed him by minutes,” the hugs is too tight and she needs to take a breath to raise her arms and return it. Leia kisses her cheek and holds her hands in hers. “I’ll never stop being grateful that you agreed to help me bring Ben back, but Poe mentioned you ran into an old friend in Philadelphia?” 

Rey knows it’s not a question, not really, and knows exactly what the Institute’s director is expecting from her.

“Yes, Finn, we went together to the academy. It was a nice enough chance meeting but it’s not relevant to catching Kylo, he must have been there for a reason, and finding it out why, will bring us closer to him,” reciting out the usual response make her realize that Kylo arranging her to meet Finn might really not been the only reason why the pretender was there. He did many things, but never did them just so and yes, he was trying to get under her skin but what if not.  
“I know that you know what needs to be done, that’s the reason I chose you,” there’s a sad smile on Leia face. “But we really to get him back as soon as possible. It’s a miracle he wasn’t exposed yet with his volatile personality. He’s a danger to society and to himself.”

This is another speech, which she knows is very much prepared and repeated. If it’s because Ben’s mother herself wants to believe it, or is it because she wants to persuade the young pretender, Rey didn’t manage yet to create a final conclusion on.

“Yes, of course,” it’s the only safe and truthful enough answer she can give. 

Leia smiles at her again. “Thank you again, we should really catch up. We haven’t done a girls evening in a while now. I’ll have Kaydel arrange something.”

Not waiting for Rey’s response, she pats her softly on the cheek and leaves. Poe gives her thumbs up and shortly follows. The waves outside are beating against the coast and she closes her eyes willing herself to be calm, but as the waves, she’s not easily subdued, the feelings inside her churning. 

Manipulated, she feels manipulated.

…

No matter how she feels, Rey decides not to wait for Kylo’s call. There was never any regularity in them. They didn’t occur after any specific events, or in any known code based on dates. At the beginning, Rey tried it all, spent hours and hours calculating, expecting but in the end, she came to a conclusion that his calls where made on random. Different times, days, she would be woken up in the night most often than not but she supposed that it was the surprise. She hated it, hates it still, so she decides to watch some boring document on Netflix and first time in the week go sleep before midnight.

As if to persuade her about his unpredictability, Kylo call her while she’s eating her breakfast.

“What?” she asks while chewing her morning bowl of cheerios. If there was a decision between sour and sweet, Rey always choose the same way.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to speak with your mouth full?” he teases her and there’s a hint of Ben in his voice. It makes her breath hitch and she puts the spoon down hoping not to make any noise. She can’t know any reminder of what once was still unsettles her. She has to bite, has to drag them back to their chosen roles. Being Ben’s friend already hurt her once, she won’t allow him to take away a part of her again.

“Never really had a mother who can teach me, monster,” his nickname slips back and she can almost hear him pulling the mask back. Their unspoken words work perfectly, his nickname, he asking if she licked Leia’s shoes today. They knew how to hurt each other. The only forbidden topic was Han and even though the questions burnt her tongue ever since that fateful call, Rey never had enough courage to ask. It felt like the last wall holding them together, once it shatters, he’ll be gone forever and she’ll lose her purpose.

“Did you like my present?” he asks her and it’s Kylo’s voice again, cold, the mask firmly in place.

“Don’t pretend the whole adventure was for my sake, you wanted something from that bank, Kylo and believe me. I’ll find out what it was and once I’ll, I’ll finally tag you with a one way ticket to the Institute,” she sneers into the phone and pushes the bowl away instantly losing all the appetite.

If she made him angry, he doesn’t allow it into his voice. The tone, pitch, everything is the same.

“I always do things for a reason, little Rey, and one day, you might be able to find out why but it’ll be the end of the Institute and there won’t be any cell left to hold me,” the call ends so abruptly that Rey is sure they’ll find a broken cell at his next lair.

…

She’s 8 and wandering through the lowest sublevels. She’s forbidden to enter anywhere below SL1 but Rey was always very creative with the ventilation system and soon found a whole new world to her. There was the part of the hospital when the worst cases were brought to, people who were dying but no place for them to die peacefully, huge labs when touching anything cause her unimaginable pain but there was also huge labs where Ben often worked.

She’s looking for him, for the teenage boy who made her laugh and taught her origami. Today she fought with Poe and needed someone to comfort her. Holdo was nice but Ben’s comfort was better. He was like a big brother to her, he would keep her safe and maybe he can scare Poe a little to leave her alone. Her fellow pretender and classmate was always so smug, so sure about himself and it made Rey feel small and unimportant but calling him a “half-brained buffon” didn’t earn her any good point with Holdo.

Rey was just pondering to crawl to another vent when she heard the scream, it was Ben’s voice and it was all she needed to start running. The lab on SL12 was one of the biggest she ever saw, it was a huge wide wall where she could now see a projections of a war. Cities were being bombed from the air, planes flying over and the picture often zooming on the pilot. She watched in awe the detailed picture of the cockpit, buttons and levers, each movement of the pilot captures. Only another scream tears her away and there, at the very end of the lab, she sees Ben. He’s strapped to a chair and there are cables attached to his body, behind him she sees the dark silhouette of Snoke using some kind of controls. When she pushes, Ben’s body goes through another seizure.

“Tell me, Kylo, where are the rebels hiding. You need to find them and you need to find them now,” he says with dead calm and presses another button. Rey feels burning flesh and before she can think she runs and pushes at Snoke.

The old man is so surprised he falls to the ground but Rey doesn’t give her any mind, she runs to Ben calling his name but when he looks back at her, those are not Ben’s eyes.


	3. Living the nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy :) Beta spot still free.

Even since she was a child, Rey was used to having nightmares. Being abandoned, her parents being taken away by a bald headed monster, finding out there isn’t anyone left on the planet were the usual recurring themes, but this morning she was feeling unsettled in a very different way. She couldn’t remember the nightmare but the moment she enters the Institute, her skin prickles and somehow it feels like a memory. Thankfully she’s leaving soon, Hux informing her between the door that they got the authorization to return to Philadelphia. 

On the plane she texts Finn while trying to look inconspicuous but Hux is buried in his book and Poe is sleeping, still, she’s rather careful. Even though they knew each other since childhood, Rey couldn’t say she was friends with either of the men. With Hux, there was the added animosity from him being Snoke’s, with Poe, they always competed against each other, hoping to best the other. Rey remembers them sneaking to a party soon after she turned 17. Both in that rebellious phase but the moment they entered the house, Poe vanished and Rey was left with a crowd of people she didn’t know. Alone. She had pretended then, as she was pretending now.

Little Rey, always different.

Once at the bank, Rey opens the notebook Kylo left behind and traces his last few days through the clipped articles, short notes around them and his occasional thoughts. In moments like these, she becomes him, becomes the person desperately clinging to his humanity by trying to help others, the need further fueled by his guilt by hurting a person close to him. She feels what he feels and that makes her the perfect person to find him. It takes a few more hours to track his latest lair, an atelier which he temporarily made his home.

Most of the place Kylo stays at are like this, big and open with the direct sunlight always close to the bed. 

“What was our psychopath up to now?” Hux murmurs tracing the books which were left behind. Encyclopedias of world’s most renowned painters, guides how to hold properly the brush, how to sketch the human body, all different, all about the same topic. Art. The wall behind the bedroom is full of smudges, but Rey sees more in it and takes a few steps behind to realize she’s looking at the blurry painting of the Institute.

“Maybe he wants to come home,” Poe shrugs and continues to look further.  
Examining the picture further, a sad feeling overwhelms her because it was never about what was pictures, it was about the feelings it evoked. 

Rey suddenly feels so very alone.

…

It’s not that difficult to ditch the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum and Rey’s suddenly very sure they both have their own agenda, wonders which one of them is currently observing the cosy restaurant Finn proposed they meet at. Perhaps both of them and perhaps she’s just becoming more and more paranoid, Kylo’s calls chirping at her sanity.

“Are you sure you can trust my mother, Rey?” he asked her once a while ago and the seed was planted. She never really trusted Snoke, but Leia? With Leia it was always so much more complicated.

Finn soon stops her wandering thoughts when he finally comes and embraces her as there never was a 3 year long radio silence between them. Within five minutes, they’re back at the academy, making fun of others and being the person they needed back then.

“Do you remember when Stevens threw up at Jamies, it was the funniest and most disturbing shit I have ever seen,” the picture the memory drew brings Rey into hysterics and he continues, bringing up the ridiculous situation they managed to find themselves in through the 3 year course. It was the best time of her life and the nostalgia makes her heart ache.

But soon enough, Finn’s face turns serious.

“Are you happy? You left so suddenly back then, it was difficult not to speculate the reasons,” he’s asking with his hand covering hers and Rey fights with herself not to flinch at his touch. It’s not him, it’s the touch and the question. She avoided both for a very long time, made herself resist any intimate connection, people could leave, could change and she remains with arms full of what remains. Splinters.

She needs to sound satisfied and she needs to mean it, Finn can’t know what her life turned to be. Two tables to the left, a couple is sitting and the woman is excitedly telling her boyfriend about her job, how good it is, how much she’s learning. She looks happy, properly happy and Rey takes a deep breath and becomes her.

If Finn notices, he doesn’t say anything but the goodbye kiss he gives her feels somehow colder. 

...

Rey feels him the moment she exits the elevator. Her skin prickles and she takes a couple of deep breaths slowly walking towards her room. There were few near misses through the last three years, seeing him grinning in the window of building across the road, his car passing through the tracks just before the train came and on one memorable occasion being handcuffed by him pretending to be a police officer. They gave her additional fine for yelling obscenities on fellow officer when his “colleagues” dragged her away.

She wasn’t completely sure what to expect now, it could be just a feeling and he won’t be anywhere near or perhaps in best case scenario, he’s waiting handcuffed. Rey rather doesn’t entertain the option he might be hurt.

It’s neither of the options and she finds him sitting on her bed in front of the TV. Kylo obviously notices her, he’s always all too aware of his surroundings but doesn’t say anything for a few seconds but Rey is frozen. “Ben, Ben, Ben,” a voice is chanting in her head but it’s not Ben who turns to her with a dark look in his eyes. It’s still impossible to stop thinking it.

“Did you enjoy yourself tonight, Rey? What you could have if you would only stop trying to take away my freedom?” there’s always a threat in Kylo’s voice, no matter the message and it makes it easy to hate him most of the time. But there’s a part of her that understands, pretending to be him left her jadded. 

She’s still standing close to the door watching him, gauging what would the best action to get them both safely back to the Institute. His moods were always his biggest weakness and she knows she needs to keep him calm, like a wild animal waiting for a chance to strike, Rey cannot give him that. 

“Yes, it was nice,” she answers finally moving from the door and shrugging her coat down and hanging it on the back of the chair. 

She turns towards him trying to calculating how close she can go before he runs. Rey almost forgot how it was to be close to him, to Ben. It can help her read him more, find the reason for this unexpected visit, it doesn’t make sense in the general state of things. It’s an unnecessary risk. Maybe he’s afraid she found out something, that the bank really wasn’t just for their benefit. While his eyes are on her, Rey cannot pretend, she’s left with guessing. She cannot outpretend the pretender.

“Then why do you keep doing this?” his voice is almost pleading and it causes her heart to beat faster. What does he want?

“I cannot just leave, cannot simply leave my family behind,” the unspoken “like you did” hangs between them like a wraith. It hurts to say it the same way, it must hurt him to hear it. Rey knows. Family is a touchy topic, for both of them. Therefore what she expects it’s to be hurt right back. He knows her better than anyone, knows which words leave the deepest wounds and she can almost hear him say them when Kylo takes a step forward, his nostrils flaring in anger. It’s all in his eyes, dark and deep, her secrets which she shared hidden in dark corners of the Institute. Rey had told him everything, every worry and fear, what she had wanted and never expected to achieve.

Ben had done the same, told her about his insecurities, how he wanted to leave the Institute and live the life of his peers. How he missed his mother even though she was always around.

Those memories she could see in his eyes as he takes another step and she has to raise her head in order not to break the eye contact. This can be it, she can maybe persuade him, play it at their shared moments. She could bring him back, she could leave him behind then. But no, that’s not what is happening and Rey realizes it at the same time Kylo does. He’s leaning down and she’s leaning up and it’s not about being the hunter and the prey, not about their families who left them incomplete. Like two pieces that didn’t fit where they were left but maybe…

She’s reaching for his hand when a loud beep echoes from somewhere on him and it breaks whatever bubble they keep entering into. Rey feels like she’s falling as Kylo suddenly moves around her and towards the door holding a stopwatch in his hand.

“Don’t worry, Rey, even if you managed to hold me long enough, the sweepers won’t make it,” he’s reaching for the knob and she should be stopping him but she’s confused and lost. Did she get in too deep? Is he taking her away inside his mind? Did she forget something?

Only when the door slams behind him, does she remember. She never called the sweepers.

…

She’s 13 and waiting for Ben to finish his sim. He promised to take her for ice cream to the canteen later and she agreed way too quickly and way too excited. She felt stupid right afterwards. She is not a child anymore and she should have asked for pizza or for him to take her to the cinema at SL2. That’s what the young and pretty people did on TV shows usually did. They went to the cinema and when the movie started and the room became dark, then they kissed.

Rey’s cheeks are aflame just thinking about Ben kissing her. He would never, he’s no longer a teenager but a young man who can have any pretty girl, why would he kiss her? Spend time with her?

As the time moves, and 5pm is suddenly 5.15, she creates a reason in her mind. He said it just like that, he didn’t mean it. There’s Beverly at L8 currently interning at the accounting, he would surely go out rather with her. She’s blonde and pretty and wears white skirts with colorful tops while Rey…

She doesn’t finish the thought because Ben is jogging towards her, not Beverly, her. It’s all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweepers are The Institute "security personnel" but basically they do the dirty work.


	4. The Cowgirl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, having a working weekend always fucks me up.

There’s a new doubt following her everywhere she moves. Sometimes it has Leia’s face and sometimes Han’s. It asks her questions she doesn’t want to answer but she does in a way. It would help nothing if she told the Institute that Kylo waited for her in her room. It gave her no clues to his current whereabouts, neither about what he looked for in Philadelphia. 

When she allows herself deeper analysis and answers a few more questions, she’s almost sure he did it just to unsettle her. He remembered her old crush and tried to manipulate her somehow. But why now? Why suddenly meddle in her life? Bringing Finn back? It doesn’t completely add up and she knows that she could just pretend to be him but even her ability has a limit. The limit is herself, she can never easily read his feelings and motivations about her. There are too many variables which could be inserted by her own desires. When she admits to having them.

Instead of driving herself crazy, she decides to put these thoughts to rest for now. She needs to concentrate on what’s her actual job so Rey closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and imagines all her troubling ideas flowing away on a paper boat. 

When she opens them, she’s standing in front of the meeting room. Both The Institute’s prized computer expert and Leia’s PA, Kaydel Connix is simply irreplaceable and everyone knows it, trying to bribe her with expensive wine, concert tickets but only Rey knows what works on the blonde genius. And she will never ever share this information. She doesn’t need it now, catching Kylo is the top priority even on SL26, the deepest bowels of the Institute.

“Rey, how nice of you to join us,” Hux drawls as soon as she pushes at the metal door. Everybody is already there and this time it’s not only Leia but Snoka as well sitting as far from each other as possible. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles even though she’s definitely on time.

Kaydel gives her a grin and turns toward her computer presenting on the screen above the conference table. She’s showing the video from the bank, zooming on the familiar black haired head.

“What’s our Wonderboy pulling out is the security box nr. XD76211D, it belonged to one Mara Jade and was not touched in 16 years,” she stops to zoom in even further and they can see the contents of what Kylo is pulling from the box. He’s in a hurry, avoiding looking into the camera which is very much unlike him. He loves to bait them. The whole table moves closer to see what was so important for their fugitive to take. 

It’s a piece of paper but for some reason, Rey sees something more.

“It’s a map,” she whispers and everybody turns towards her.

“And pray tell dear pretender, a map to what?” Snoke asks his permanent sneer firmly set on his face but Rey shakes her head, not understanding why the word occurred to her. Did she pretended to be him without noticing?

“Mara Jade was a former flame of my brother, we should find out if it really belonged to her or if this is his trick to try and distract us with something,” it’s Leia who speaks, taking the word from her rival but with an actual useful information. 

It takes a while for Rey to remember who she means by “my brother”. Luke Skywalker’s time at the Institute overlapped just slightly with Rey’s and they rarely interacted. All she knew about him was from Ben. They had a complicated relationship but somehow she couldn’t believe that this was a coincidence or a trick. This clue was real but she decided to keep this thought for now. 

“That’s all?” Snoke asks obviously annoyed. Rey doesn’t know what they expected but both him and Leia were getting more and more at edge over Kylo’s absence. It was another thought, Rey stored for later.

Kaydel grins at the sallow skinned monster with a “yes, sir”, jumps from the table and immediately starts to disconnecting her computer. The others follow, the feeling of someone soon taking a blame was heavily hanging over lower employees of the Institute. Rey should know better that being distracted but the more she thought about what Kylo found, the more sure she became that the piece of paper contained everything he wanted. It might as well be the reason, the Pretender ran away. 

Soon, she’s the only one in the room, or at least she thinks so but there’s a squeaky sound behind her and she knows that today it would be her.

Snoke circles her in his full threatening stance, his shoes making noises which made him recognizable from miles away. He was the boogieman of Rey’s childhood and she used to hide every time he entered the lab, choose a different way when she heard him in the hallways. Even before she witnessed what he was capable of, Rey was always afraid of him. There was something about him that told her his mind was dangerous and he was the only person she never attempted to sim. She knew Ben did and in her mind, that was the reason he became Kylo.

“Young, Rey, maybe I was wrong when I thought that your abilities are the closest to Kylo Ren’s or do you have something to say that will persuade me otherwise?” the monster asks her leaning closer. 

Rey knew she’s supposed to be afraid, for her job, maybe even for her life but she only feels disgust. And anger, she’s very very angry. She almost got closer to Ben, almost found him behind the mask and maybe he killed Han but there is a reason behind and it staring in her face.

It’s easy to push the fear away. “You know I’m your best chance at getting him back so why don’t you slink back to your hole and let me do my job,” she sneers into his face and moves quickly not giving him a chance to react. She isn’t that brave, instead she walks towards her office taking deep breaths and hoping that she didn’t just sign her death sentence. But there are things that she should be more afraid of, she almost made herself believe that Ben is still there somewhere and if she isn’t right…

Rey steels her heart. She hates Kylo Ren.

…

It’s much more easy to hate him when she’s suddenly dropped in the middle of nowhere in the worst heat possible. Her shirt is soaked, she wants to throw her shades away and at the same time to keep them on forever. She has to listen to Hux too, that part is most cruel.

“Why couldn’t they send a sweeper team instead? We aren’t even sure that he was really here. Ah, bloody hell, I have something on my shoe,” and so it goes. Poe is unusually quiet and Rey knows she needs to keep her eye on him. She saw him leaving Leia’s office after the briefing and it can’t mean anything good. Maybe it’s not only Snoke who’s losing his faith in her abilities.

Kylo has been outside way too long.

He had disrupted more than one business deal the Institute was going to make. He cost them the contract with federal army and one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in US. They were bleeding money and even though it wasn’t visible yet, Rey knew it might soon come to a time when they would need to stop one of their projects. The Pretender project is their main flagship even though they rarely introduce this program to new investors. They highlight their medical research, engineering program but those are very expensive to be kept alive.

The only solution is to bring Kylo back and soon. Hence they’re here wading through marshland toward a ruin known as camp Kikiwaka. Rey snorted loudly hearing its name. It was difficult to imagine the brooding vigilante spending time at a place with such a silly name. But he did, not only now as their sources suggested but also when he was a teenager and before Rey came into the Institute.

It’s only a 40 minute hike but she hates every single second of it, especially when they arrive. There’s a colourful totem standing in front of the main gate, four faces, one on another. It’s them and on the top, Kylo grinning like a mad man.

Rey knows already this will be all they can find.

…

Rey is 10 years old and she doesn’t like when Ben is sad, and Ben is often sad. She hasn’t seen him cry, neither did he tell her how he feels, but she knows. She’s not good at simming yet, still too young but she could always feel what Ben could feel. 

She wonders if it has to do anything with Doctor Skywalker since she saw them talk in the morning. She knows he used to work with Ben before Snoke and she’s sure he couldn’t have been worse. But maybe she’s wrong, maybe some wounds hurt more than others.

“Do you want some ice cream?” she asks because she always feels better after she has an ice cream, vanilla is her favourite.

Ben puts down the pencil and smiles at her. He often smiles at her, at her questions and silliness and Rey hopes that she’s somehow driving the sadness away. She would do anything for Ben, he’s her best friend, her most trusted confidant, her favourite playmate even though he’s no longer a child.

“Sure, Rey, but I need to finish these for Snoke,” he motions towards the drawings in front of him. There are multiple pictures of the same face and she wants to ask who’s the man but a different question passes her lips instead.

“Are you sad because of Dr. Skywalter?”

Ben sighs. “It’s complicated. My relation with Luke was always complicated.” He doesn’t take the pencil back, instead he stands up. “You know, I wouldn’t mind the ice cream now.”

Rey grins happily at him, sees the shadows in his eyes go into hiding. Back then she thought it meant they were gone, she knows better now.


	5. Scribble

Rey was never at any camp, although her whole life sometimes felt like it. Sometimes sims were fun, when she was building the Empire State Building from Lego blocks or observed behavior of 12 different bunnies and their reactions to different types of food, but often it was schoolwork as any other child, even though she never went to any real school. The FBI academy was the first time she was just one of the others, her first weeks were difficult to put it mildly. Even though she sat through her SATs and got wonderful score, slightly adjusted by the Institute of course, it didn’t prepare her in the slightest. Rey might have been the smartest in classes about investigation methods, best at handling the gun or swift enough to beat a man twice her size, but when it came to the social situations, she was severely lacking.

It was glaringly obvious how much, and not just being younger than the rest of the recruits.

Then she met Finn, and everything was suddenly different. She could never be a typical cadet, but everything was easier with someone in your corner.

Glaring at the striking yellow picnic tables and chairs, she wonders how Ben managed to survive here. Everything is too cheerful and happy, it unsettles her. It doesn’t feel right now, she’s more than sure that it didn’t feel right back then too. Someone was trying too hard to chase away darkness and shadows using colours and forced positivity.

“We take on the most complicated cases only, when parents don’t know how to deal with their children anymore. We have a psychologist with us each summer, Dr. Skywalker was one of them,” Mrs. White continues to speak without prompting. Rey simply asked about Kylo, showing his picture and she flipped on an invisible switch. The old lady didn’t stop to take a breath since then.

“He and Ben had a very explosive relationship, I don’t know why that poor man even tried. The boy was a nightmare back then.”

They’re walking through the playfield and Rey imagines dark-haired teenager throwing pebbles in the water, his whole posture angry and resigned to his own fate. Did he know back then what will become of him? It’s only natural to feel the same. The desolation. No one cares enough to listen what is it you want. It feels extremely close to home to and Rey sends those thoughts away.

“Did Ben cause any trouble? Was he violent?” she asks and looks sideways at Mrs. White but there’s warmth in the woman’s eyes despite the words that left her mouth just a few moments ago.

She shakes her head. “No, just angry, very angry, wouldn’t do anything you ask of him. He would help the younger kids with tasks without prompting but as soon Dr. Skywalker asked him to join the others for a trip or help him with research, he shut down completely,” she sighs and stops near the small pier. The place could be beautiful, but Rey feels all the conflicted emotions left behind.

“Dr. Skywalker was wonderful with the other kids but no matter how he tried, he never could help his own nephew. I always felt there was more to the story, but it seems Ben grew up to be a wonderful man. He even repaired my old car, that boy and have you seen that wonderful totem he build?” changing the tune, suddenly Kylo’s the most wonderful man and Rey can’t help but grimace.

She knew Ben as the most wonderful person and Kylo as the monster, to Mrs. White, it was the opposite. Who was the real man behind the mask?

…

By now, Rey’s quite good with predicting his calls. It’s an instinct, a feeling similar to when he’s near. When they were still both at the Institute, she could find him by this feeling alone. But this time when her phone rings while she’s driving home from the Institute, it startles her so badly she jerks the wheel barely missing a car driving opposite her.

She raises her hand in apology and parks on the side of the road picking up the call.

Her “what” is entirely too shaken and soft.

“You shouldn’t pick up the phone while driving, it’s dangerous,” he says conversationally, and Rey would totally punch him if he would be next to her. Instead she can only release a frustrated sigh that makes him chuckle. It sounds unexpectedly warm and she feels her heart speed up. It’s dangerous, a voice in her head whispers. Stop.

“Like you wouldn’t be happy to get rid of me. How was the camp by the way, did you get to relive a few happy memories?” she forces poison into her voice, needs to be angry.

She hears movement over the line and a chair scrapes on hard floor. “It was certainly a new experience. It’s funny how the places from your childhood look differently once you grow up, how does the Institute feel to you now, Rey? Is it a home you looked for?”

If they know something well now, it’s how to hurt each other.

“What about you, monster, finally found the end of your mommy’s skirt? Or was it your uncle’s love you were craving? Being the perfect little experiment for him?” she sneers feeling a part of her hiding deep in her mind. The little girl looking up to Ben Solo, the teenager with the huge crush, the young woman who…

“You know nothing about me and Luke. Say Rey, did you ever wonder why he left? Why it was suddenly Snoke being my jailer?” his voice sounds entirely too calm before he hangs up. It tells Rey few things. He was giving her a message, the question was, was she willing to listen?

…

“You wanted this from the very beginning, to keep me on the leash, you lock me up, to pretend that I don’t exist.”

Rey knows this voice, she knows this voice very well, but the tone is new. She’s 11 years old walking to SL5 to find Chewie. Sometimes he lets her play around with the new appliances he’s creating, walking clock, vacuum cleaner which cleans itself and all kinds of robots. Rey loves spending time in his lab but now she stops dead in her tracks when she hears the desperation in Ben’s voice.

She heard something had happened, something that got police involved and Leia extremely agitated but she’s just a kid and no one tells her anything. She wants to know more, so instead of continuing her way, she climbs into the vent next to the room and listens.

“Ben, we only want what’s best for you, you must understand that. It’ll be only temporary,” Leia is pleading but there’s an undercurrent in her voice that tells Rey that no matter what Ben says, it’s decided. A tear slips down her cheek for her friend. She might be young and lived most of the life between walls of the Institute, but she knows pain and feeling abandoned and those emotions are seeping into her even through the walls. There’s also resignation, he knows, and that’s the reason he doesn’t fight. She hears him moving quickly and Leia calling after him.

“I warned you, this could’ve been prevented,” a cold voice hisses when she’s pushing herself out of the vent. It’s Snoke and maybe she would like to know more, hear more but Ben’s more important.

He is standing on the roof when she catches up with him, hands in his pockets, he watches the sunset with cold look on his face. Rey pulls his hand out and holds it between hers much smaller ones. Ben looks down at her, squeezes them and they stay there quietly.

Next day, Ben tells her that he cannot leave the Institute. She pretends to be sad but there’s a part of her that rejoices. Ben will never ever leave her.


	6. High-waisted pants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey does some digging into the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit more time till the kids are finally reunited, hope you'll forgive me.

She doesn’t want him to rule over her thoughts, he isn’t supposed to. Rey gave the right to Ben, but Kylo had taken it away. He has nothing, he’s a monster and yet as soon as he planted the idea into her brain, she can’t stop. She’s forcing herself to remember, to remove the childhood view from her memories, to look at them with what she knows now. It’s not the easiest thing to do and her anger at herself for being easily manipulated stops her before she even begins.

Instead she decides to concentrate on Luke. Last two places Kylo went were connected to his uncle, it was the obvious course of action. With Poe and Hux following a lead she knows it’s a dead end, she stays behind and decides to find out more about Leia’s mysterious twin. 

She was 7 years old the first time she hacked into the Institute’s database, it got slightly better after Ben improved it but after that it became a game of what Ben needs to do in order to stop her. It’s too easy now. Putting on the headphones, Rey decides to drown all unwanted thoughts in a very loud music and takes a sip of her double cream caramel frappuccino.

She’s halfway through reading Luke’s article on potential genius genes, potential since the Institute still kept the Pretender program confidential, when the internal chat window suddenly opens and scares the living shit out of her. Especially when she sees who’s it from.

“Please, Rey, join me in my office,” Leia writes in perfectly normal and pleasant message. Rey knows it isn’t so. The Institute’s director never asks you personally to come and visit her. She sends someone for you, schedules a meeting, or stops you in the middle of the hallway so send you on a wild-goose chase across the country. Rey doesn’t have to guess what it is about.

Kaydel grins at her from her desk. “Hey, Rey-Rey, are we still on next week?” she asks and Rey forces a smile and nods and thinks “sure, if I’ll be still alive”. Snoke might be the one that everyone expects is hiding bodies after working hours but lately Leia is becoming unhinged as well and Rey has trouble predicting her. She tried simming her too, but there’s too much baggage and hurt when it comes to Ben to have a clear picture.

“You wanted to see me?” Rey asks after one soft knock that immediately followed by “come in”.

Ben’s mother gives her a tight smiles and motions for her to come closer and sit on the chair in front of her desk. They’re on the highest floor in the Tower and behind Leia Rey can see the ocean wildly fighting against the coast. It’s almost like a moving painting and she loses herself in the view. As a child, she was never allowed to enter the Tower, it was the place of business. Only after she returned, after abandoning her dreams, could she finally see what the fuss was about. It means nothing still. 

“You could’ve asked me about Luke,” Leia speaks suddenly and tears Rey away from her memories. “He’s my twin, no one knows about him more than I do.”

Her tone is pleasant, calm but Rey is a Pretender, she sees behind the calm exterior, sees the way the older woman is holding onto the old ornament pen, how straight she sits, making herself just slightly taller. Without Ben at the Institute, Rey became cocky. No one could track her movements if they didn’t know about them but they expected them, maybe not her to be the one snooping for information about Luke Skywalker, but someone. Kylo.

“I didn’t want to bother you and it seemed the correct direction after Kylo visiting Minnesota. I don’t remember much about Luke myself,” hoping to downplay somehow what she done, Rey leans on the chair to make herself more comfortable. Not to appear guilty.

Leia sighs and puts the pen next to half-written letter on the desk. “I have trouble believing that there weren't any other options than to hack into the mainframe, Rey. You could’ve sent an official request, ask me anytime, we’re family here. We need to trust each other,” she’s giving Rey a look that’s supposed to make her feel ashamed and there’s a part of her that feels that way but there’s something else too. Kylo’s words spoken in the middle of the night just few weeks ago.

“Trust can kill you, or set you free. Are you sure you want to put it in my mother?”

She didn’t think much about it then but now Leia talking about trust when there was so many things she had to find on her own. So many promises that only remained that. 

Trust. Such a small word.

“I understand that you’re under a lot of pressure but it has been three years and no real progress, but I trust you, Rey. I trust you to bring my boy back before something happens that would make you regret not trusting me back,” Leia leans over the desk and grasps Rey’s hand. She barely reaches but gives it everything. Rey isn’t sure she wants to do the same.

…

She feels numb after leaving the Tower and instead of going back to her office she goes out for a walk. It’s the best way to remember, each spot, each bench hides a memory, of her scraped knees or first time driving a car. She’s got her first kiss under the pear tree behind the library. It wasn’t Ben.

Rey knows she can’t keep herself from remember those more painful times, has to face the fact that there are more secrets she wasn’t privy to. That her only family might not be completely honest with her. 

It takes her a few moments to check on Leia’s calendar to find out she has a business dinner tonight. It’s ideal, the sooner she does this the better. It still angers her that it was Kylo who send her this way, it wasn’t just about Luke, it was about the past and Rey’s was the Solo’s residence where she was brought to fill the empty spot.

“Welcome, Miss Rey, what a nice surprise,” Artoo welcomes her warmly and she smiles and kisses his cheek. “Miss Leia is unfortunately out but I can ask the cook to make you something.”

Rey agrees, Leia will know anyway she was here, why shouldn’t she get a nice dinner out of it too? Artoo hurries to the kitchen as she makes her way up the stairs. The Solo’s lived in a mansion which Leia inherited after her adoptive parents. Organas’ would’ve been an America royalty if there would be such thing and their ancestors had built their house to display exactly that. Two stories, more than 30 rooms, large gardens and two outside pools. When Rey has been moved there, she felt like a princess, but just for a moment till the reality didn’t fall on her.

They didn’t give her Ben’s room but they might as well have done so. He was everywhere, pictures of him, his toys and inventions and Rey stops herself before she enters his room. She isn’t here for that, isn’t here to remember sneaking there to be closer to him at night. 

Her rooms looks exactly as she left it, the teddy bear Ben had given her, her old clothes, all the memories of emptiness. She hated this room, this house, it was given to her to fulfill her dreams of having a home but it never was a home to her. It was Ben’s home, she was just the replacement. The shadow child.

It’s too much. She wanted to come back here to be able to feel what she felt then, to transport herself to those times when she slowly started losing her grasp on her best friend. It took another ten years but it was then when Ben was becoming Kylo and she was becoming the perfect daughter. Maybe they wanted it then, to become other people, to lose what made them people who went through so much pain. Maybe they caused it all themselves.

And Rey is suddenly angry, angry at herself for allowing them to manipulate her, to give her what she wanted only with conditions that made her lose who she fought to be. She could become Kylo, destroy everything, to reign with chaos and start from the beginning. That was what he wanted, what he repeated.

“You have to kill the past, Rey.” And she wanted it now very much, wanted to choke the life of the little girl who craved a mother's love and was willing to do everything to attain it. 

Her anger deflates suddenly, and it’s curiosity that replaces it because Rey notices something that the room never had. On her bed, an innocently looking blue book. She takes quick steps as if not to make it disappear and looks at the cover.

It has The Blue Cove High School Yearbook Class 2005 written on it and she opens it turning page after page and trying to understand what Kylo is trying to tell her, why did he create this fantasy world she never had? There are people she doesn’t know, has never met but there are pictures of her too. Leaning over a microscope with the biggest grin, sitting on the bench outside the Institute with glaring Poe but it’s not what Kylo wanted to show her. The clue is not a picture printed in the book, it’s a photograph of an attractive smiling brunette hidden between the pages. And next to her with an arm around her shoulders is Ben.

Her Ben.

…

Rey is 10 and she can fit all her belongings into one small suitcase. Still Ben helps her pack. He keeps a constant commentary of what she should do and who she should visit and which brand of ice cream she should make Han take her to have. She tries to remember it all. She’s excited, she really is but the moment she’s supposed to leave and realizes he has to stay behind, her eyes fill with tears.

“It’s okay, kid. You’ll be back tomorrow to annoy me,” he says with a grin but she still hugs him tightly and lets Han to drag her away. And she likes it, likes to have her room with a view into the garden, likes to sit in the back of the town car each morning and late afternoon, likes to spend the weekend watching Han fixing his cars and planes and sometimes, sometimes her takes her for trips. Those she likes the most.

What she cannot like is when Han and Leia fight. Ben tells her to ignore them, to never listen and just hide herself in her room and watch the TV, because yes, she has her own TV too. But sometimes she can’t sleep and those times she often hears what Ben didn’t want her to.

“You cannot lock him there forever,” Han would plead, his voice so sad Rey wanted to run into the room and hug him.

“It’s for his own good. We don’t know what would happen to him,” she would plead back, her voice sad and cracking and Rey wanted to hug her too.

“He isn’t your father, and the sooner you understand, the sooner we can get our son back.”

Rey never understood whom they were talking about. Who was he? And why did they need to get their son back? Ben was back at the Institute, she would go there tomorrow and he would teach her something useful or fun or help her with her experiments. She asks him one, asks him why are his parents missing him when he’s right there.

He gives her a sad smile that cracks her heart open but he doesn’t answer. There isn’t anything to say to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished "Saving Luke" and ugh, I was so ready to hate it but then... *sighs* That one scene, one scene made me change my mind. They know what they're doing.


End file.
